Archive for the 'Ammunition' Category

Richard Mann writing at F&S.

The situation where the 10mm Auto has the bigges advantage is for backcountry survival or bear defense. Loaded with something like Buffalo Bore’s 220-grain hardcast Outdoorsman load at 1200 fps, it will hit harder than any 45 ACP load, and because of the smaller diameter non-deforming bullet, will penetrate deeper, even deeper than a 180-grain Barnes Triple Shock bullet fired out of a 30-06 rifle!

That’s his conclusion paragraph.  It’s true enough as it reads, but it’s incomplete.

He doesn’t consider use of 450 SMC, which would give him 230 grains running downrange at 1120 FPS.

Comparatively speaking, the hottest factory 185-grain .45 ACP load you can buy will generate only about 1,140 fps, and the fastest 230-grain offering only about 1,000 fps. Essentially, what you get with the .450 SMC are 10 mm velocities with a .45-caliber instead of a .40-caliber bullet.

I have no problem at all using a heavier bullet at comparable velocities.

Richard should expand his article (or do another one) on the use of 450 SMC and 460 Rowland.  Actually, he should have written this one to consider all of the 45 options.

Vista Outdoors Bought by Czech Company. Press Release.

News:

Current CEO Jason Vanderbrink Will Continue to Lead the Sporting Products Business and the U.S. Headquarters Will Remain in Anoka, Minnesota

Represents Largest Acquisition in the History of Czech Defense Industry

The Czechoslovak Group (“CSG”) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Vista Outdoor Inc.’s (NYSE: VSTO) (“Vista Outdoor”) Sporting Products business for a total consideration of $1.91 billion, valuing the business at approximately 5x Fiscal Year 2024E EBITDA, including estimated standalone costs. CSG will partner with the existing management to pursue the continued growth path envisaged for the Sporting Products business over the coming years.

Headquartered in Anoka, Minnesota, Vista Outdoor’s Sporting Products business is a leading ammunition manufacturer in the U.S. commercial and law enforcement markets. It employs approximately 4,000 employees across its four U.S. factories and owns leading ammunition brands including CCI, Federal, HEVI-Shot, Remington and Speer.

CSG, based in Prague, Czech Republic, is a leading industrial technology company operating in five strategic business segments: Defense, Aerospace, Ammunition, Mobility and Business Projects. It is 100% controlled and led by Michal Strnad, who has transformed it into the most relevant Czech industrial group, with a strong international footprint. CSG employs more than 10,000 people worldwide and owns and manages a diverse portfolio of industrial and trade companies across the civil and defense sectors.

This isn’t good news for any American. Having ammo manufacturing dependent in any way upon the hearts and minds of foreigners in Europe seems like a wrong strategic move for the government and certainly doesn’t bode well for civilians.

Smith & Wesson just opened manufacturing near Knoxville, TN; many southern states have stepped up, and now most U.S. firearms manufacturing is done in the southern United States. It’s time to bring ammunition manufacturing as well to the last vestiges of freedom on earth in the Deep South and Mountain West.

The Hornady plant fire will certainly slow overall ammo production. The extent of manufacturing disruption at Hornady is hard to ascertain.

By now, you’ve heard about Lake City being ordered to stop sales to civilians.

A person with knowledge of the situation tells us that, more than just “considering” the move, Winchester, which operates the US Army’s Lake City ammunition plant, has been informed that it may be blocked from selling M855 and SS109 ammunition produced in excess of the military’s needs on the civilian market.

How would that affect the civilian supply of .223 and 5.56 ammunition? We understand that as much as 30% of the commercial market’s sales volume of .223/5.56 is produced by Lake City.

The White House is now denying this. Making your own seems like an increasingly attractive option. Ammunition control is gun control.

This seems to be an ongoing theme with the red tip straight wall cartridges Hornady makes.  They shatter into hundreds of pieces of lead.  This ruins meat.  They cannot be used for hunting like that.  They must be redesigned.  Fabricate them out of copper, perhaps.  Do something different than ruin meat.

For reasons that you can easily guess.

IL State Police modified their ammo background check system to where sellers in the state need to put in the caliber being sold. This is to track people and target them for buying calibers like 5.57/7.62×39 who didn’t register their “assault rifles”…they’re going for it https://t.co/8oNhPlbUy4 pic.twitter.com/4MgKWce24U

— President Non_Fudd (@Non_Fudd) October 6, 2023

Recoil.

Shared via Instagram by Aaron Cowan of Sage Dynamics, a UTM memo detailing how the BATFE has ordered UTM to stop selling their non-lethal training ammo (NLTA) to anyone other than law enforcement and the military. RECOIL has confirmed this directly with UTM.

How and why the BATFE feels they have this authority to decide law-abiding civilians can’t have NLTA arbitrarily is a mystery to us at this time.

We know force-on-force training isn’t something most of us do every weekend. The fact is, most of us never do it in our lives. That said, it is extremely useful training that should be available to every legal firearm owner.

This is another example of the BATFE using its made-up power to invent de facto laws and regulations to suppress Americans’ right to bear arms. Training and access to ammunition are central to our Second Amendment rights.

Beyond that, this ban is simply an absurd federal overstep since non-lethal training ammunition is non-lethal. No one is being protected by this ban. No one is being saved. This is purely about the BATFE and the executive branch as a whole furthering their crusade of civilian disarmament.

They don’t have the authority.  They just made that up out of whole cloth.  Hopefully this will be taken to court and the ATF slapped down.

Basically, the ATF doesn’t want you to engage in force on force training.

But notice what they did.  They banned it for civilian use, but didn’t include LE in that category.  This is a sinful omission, and probably intentional.

I believe the founders had something to say about occupying armies.

What Are Terminal Ballistics?

This intro is humorous:

Stopping power, or “knockdown power,” is a projectile’s ability to incapacitate a target, whether animal or human. While almost everyone’s heard the term, understanding exactly what it means can be tough. All the confusion surrounding stopping power is mainly due to Hollywood’s unrealistic depictions of what happens when someone gets shot.

In TV and movies, one bullet will send a grown man flying backward. Depending on how over-the-top the flick is, they may do a backflip, launch off a building, or perform another acrobatic feat. On the other hand, the invincible hero shrugs off round after round until he completes the mission, saves the girl, and rides off into the sunset.

“As you will learn shortly, there are no ‘magic bullets” — there is no free lunch, and there is no substitute for marksmanship.” – Evan P. Marshall (Handgun Stopping Power: The Definitive Study)

As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Let’s dive deeper into the science of terminal ballistics to get to the bottom of stopping power. We’ll examine the five factors influencing what happens when a bullet hits something.

If you can’t hit the target, it really doesn’t matter what ammo you use. The article goes on to discuss five factors that impact stopping power; caliber, muzzle velocity, bullet mass, bullet shape and composition, and muzzle energy; chart included.

Basically, the Sierra Club and others took the U.S. Forest Service (and then the state of Arizona) to court over lead ammunition.

On the other hand, in the same provision that gives USFS control over federal forests, Congress specified that USFS’s authority “shall [not] be construed . . . to require Federal permits to hunt and fish . . . on lands in the National Forest System.” 43 U.S.C. § 1732(b). And Congress has provided in recent appropriations acts that “[n]one of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to regulate the lead content of ammunition, ammunition components, or fishing tackle under the Toxic Substances Control Act (15 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq.) or any other law.” Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, Pub. L. No. 107-103, sec. 2, div. G, tit. IV, § 438, 136 Stat. 421 (2022). The implication of this restriction is not immediately clear to us. USFS has not argued to us that this provision outright bars the relief CBD seeks.1 We do not know the scope of the appropriations restriction and whether it would prohibit USFS from, for example, conducting a rulemaking to regulate lead use in the nation’s forests, but such provisions would surely test the current limits of USFS’s general authority. See United States v. McIntosh, 833 F.3d 1163, 1172–73 (9th Cir. 2016) (holding that federal courts may enforce an appropriations rider restricting the Department of Justice from using funds to prevent states from implementing their own laws with respect to marijuana use). We do not refer to these provisions to suggest that USFS can or cannot use its existing authority to regulate the use of lead ammunition, but to demonstrate that, whatever the scope of USFS’s authority, Congress has not directed USFS to regulate hunters’ use of lead shot on federal lands.

Here is the decision.  It’s a lengthy one and the read can study it for himself, but basically, the ninth circuit told the Sierra Club to go away.  It’s the right decision.

I recently ordered two boxes of copper bullet cartridges at significant expense to me compared to lead bullets.  First of all, I like what I see on ballistic tests of copper ammunition (i.e., the beautiful and symmetric bullet flower petal).  Second, I like the weight retention inherent in the design, and the fact that the meat isn’t contaminated.  That’s a big deal.

Third, I like the fact that I am helping not to adversely affect birds of prey or other animals that eat the remains of what I might have to leave behind.  But that’s the third reason, not the first two.

I want to have the option to use copper ammunition, and if it’s safer for the environment, I think hunters and the shooting community should lead the way.  I’m all in on that.

What I don’t want is to be told what I can and can’t do by a controller.

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The only thing I’ll say is that I’ve seen M193 perform an awful lot better than that.  Something was wrong with that test and I don’t think it’s indicative of what .223/5.56 can do.

Paul Harrell gives us a really interesting video on ammo storage.  What he finds is that if the ammo works, it seems to work well.  Unfortunately, he had some failures to fire in the batch he left in his car for a year.  He suspects (and I suspect too) that further exposure to high temperature and humidity would have further degraded the ammunition performance.

I spent just a little time to locate U.S. Army temperature and humidity storage specifications for ammunition, and while I found a bit of information, I ran out of time on that research project.  I suspect there is much more than what I found.

I did manage to locate an American Rifleman Q&A.

Q: I live in rural upstate New York, and summer temperatures reach in excess of 90° F—with car and attic temperatures exceeding triple digits. Is there a known “maximum safe temperature” for the storage of ammunition? What would be the ideal conditions to store ammunition?

A: Nitrocellulose, the primary ingredient in smokeless powder, is hygroscopic, which means it absorbs water from the air that can affect both shelf life and burn rate. Coatings and stabilizers, such as methyl and ethyl centralite, are added to prevent this. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these compounds is reduced as the temperature rises.

The standard advice is to store ammunition in a “cool, dry place.” Manufacturers try to store powders at 70° F +/- 5 degrees. For handloaders, the best advice is to store powder in a cool basement or an interior room that is of “comfortable” temperature.

The only thing I can think of to say is if you live in New York, get out.